Maramureș Adventure Cup 4, as it was officially named, was our first racing adventure. It was a Spider Bikers Baia Mare event that took place in Izvoarele, MM.
There was four of us making the trip, Ana, packing the future great.. whatever he’ll want to be, and two Dans. Two of us raced (me and Dan C.) in B class and two of us finished. Bottom line, we met our objective for the year. The track had a nice flow and was pretty relaxed for us (B class), with rather few opportunities for dragging the bikes over obstacles. The weather was good, not too hot, not too cold and just a bit of rain.

We got there Fri around noon, signed up and ate. Thanks to Dani Conopan and Dirt Bike Riders Baia Mare, we got to compete, as there was the need for a FRM affiliated club, and I got fresh tires for the bike.
Then there was the prologue, 11kms of bumps, rocks, boulders, swamp, forest, roots, uphills and downhills.. enough for everyone to warm up their forearms. Then there was beer and good times.

On Saturday the real race began. For us, 52kms of track (by the bike’s measurement). The A class guys had to put in a lot more effort, as the A loops were the hard part. Midway there was a spectator point, in an old quarry. We had a climb there, where, for my fans, I threw the bike up and I skidded back on my ass. Dan on the other hand almost lost the engine guard after the first CP and waited for someone with some zip-ties to come along to “fix” it, so he had no time to do any more showing off. We made it to the finish line and ranked somewhere in the pack.

Sunday there was rain, but contrary to what we thought, the track didn’t become much harder. It was Saturday’s course ran in the opposite direction, except for the quarry. I had no unpleasant events except kicking the bike for 10 minutes on the last challenging bit of the day. Well, 10 mins is a bit of an exaggeration, because 5 minutes of those I was busy smoking a cigarette “borrowed” from the guy at the last CP. But Dan decided it was time for some sightseeing. Somehow he managed to get lost and wound up on the Mogoșa downhill trail. As long as he got there, he figured he’d try to climb it before getting back to the “race”.

Fortunately, the bikes had no issues, we had no injuries and it was an overall great experience. We’re definitely going to go “racing” again.

I’ve also drawn some conclusions:
1. enduro is great when it’s easy
2. in order to win, your name must be Emanuel